


Tests

by wildwinterwitch



Series: Cloisters [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:32:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildwinterwitch/pseuds/wildwinterwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their relationship is put to a test.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tests

I was sitting on the beach, wrapped in the Doctor's coat. It was a cold, blustery day, dark clouds piling heavily on top of each other in the sky above the sea. The sand further down the beach was hard-packed and crowded with kite festival participants and spectators. The kites were dancing and diving and straining as they rode the wind, colourful specks against the dark shades of grey. Their colours stood out brilliantly in the sunlight. The wind was tearing at my hair just like it was the kites' tails, and I felt nearly giddy with joy. In contrast to the thin line that kept the kites from taking flight I was anchored by my bare feet buried in the pale sand. It was warm on the surface, but as I dug my toes deeper, it was quite cold just below the surface. The feeling of the sand between my toes, however, was too wonderful to give up. It reminded me of the occasional trips mum and I had taken to the beach.

The Doctor's shadow fell across my legs as he joined me. He was still wearing his trainers, but he had no qualms about sitting down in the sand next to me in his brown pin-striped suit. He opened the paper bag he'd brought and passed me a sandwich and a bottle of water. “Here,” he said, and when I looked at him, his hair was blowing every which way in the stiff breeze. The sunlight had brought out the freckles on his skin and I leaned in for a quick kiss.

“Thank you,” I said. It was an egg-mayonnaise sandwich. The very thought of it made my stomach turn, and I dropped it onto my lap, opening the water bottle instead.

“You haven't eaten all day,” he observed, opening the wrapping of his sandwich.

“'m not hungry,” I said, pushing the hair behind my ear, only to have the wind loosen it almost at once. “Maybe later.”

The Doctor didn't reply, and I knew he knew. Sometimes I wasn't sure I liked his superior senses. Had he tasted the changes in my body on my skin when we'd made love, when we kissed? Was it something about my smell? Or had he just noticed that I'd missed my period and thrown up in the mornings?

I drank and watched the kites and the gulls playing with them, the screeching of the birds intermingling with the squeals and laughter of the children, the roaring of the wind and the waves. When the Doctor had finished his sandwich he put his arm around me and pulled me against him. It was a perfect day.

“I'm pregnant.”

He exhaled. “I know,” he whispered. “How did that happen?”

I giggled. “Well...” I began, but he cut me off.

He let go of me. “Don't.” His tone was sharp. “I mean it. How could that happen?”

I looked at him, shielding my eyes against the sun behind him. I hadn't expected a reaction like this, and the shock rendered me speechless. “Aren't... aren't you happy?” I asked, because I was. We hadn't planned it, but still I was overjoyed. When it was clear I had missed my period I had been scared at first, but that had changed quickly.

“When were you planning to tell me?” he asked, standing.

“What? Doctor, I've only known for a couple of days myself,” I said. “I wanted to... get used to the idea first.” I reached out for him, but his fingers were limp when I closed my hand around them.

“Eat your sandwich,” he said flatly. Then he tugged his hand free and turned to leave.

“Doctor?” I asked softly, knowing that he couldn't hear me, but still needing to say something. Tears were welling up in my eyes. I hadn't expected him to pick me up and whirl me around, but I'd at least expected a hug. The coldness in his eyes was more than a little scary, and they had never been as closed off as just now. I was completely unable to read him.

Was having a baby that bad? Our life would have to slow down for a while, and then there was the question of how to get care for me and the baby – if he was a Gallifreyan I could hardly go to a doctor in London; they would think I was having twins until they did an ultrasound and saw it was just one baby with two hearts. He would be a freak and...

But that alone couldn't be it. That was a problem we could solve.

I brushed back the loose strands whipping my face, rubbing my cheeks dry as I squinted as the dark mass of clouds moved farther out across the sea. I wanted to have the baby. I wouldn't get rid of him, even if – and I shuddered at the thought – even if it meant losing the Doctor. No, I couldn't lose him either. He was the only one I had. I bit my lip in shame. I knew he would never make me choose between him and the baby. He'd come around.

Suddenly ravenous, I tore open the wrapper and ate the sandwich so quickly I don’t even remember tasting it. All I could think of was how disappointed and shocked the Doctor had been and how much I wanted to have the baby. Fresh tears sprung to my eyes as I washed down the sandwich with the rest of the water. The Doctor had left the lunch bag, and after I'd taken out the banana and the apple I used it for the rubbish. Once I’d eaten the banana as well I started to feel a bit better. At least my stomach seemed to have settled down somewhat. Just before we had left the TARDIS to come to the beach, I had thrown up in our bathroom.

I lay back against the sweeping dune and stared into the sky. The clouds were moving fast, and the kites danced and swerved, their tails and loose bits flapping softly in the wind. The air was divine, and I enjoyed its clear, salty smell. My tears dried up as I lay still, the skin a bit taut where they'd trickled down my cheeks, and I closed my eyes. I was tired, and I was having a baby. I smiled.

I must have dozed off for a couple of minutes. The sun was warm in my face and I had to shield my eyes when I opened them. The Doctor was sitting next to me in shirtsleeves, his arms wrapped around his knees. He still wore his Converse.

The coat had fallen off my shoulders as I'd lain back, and I shifted a little and tugged at the fabric to spread it out and make room for him. “Lie with me?” I asked, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

To my surprise, he looked devastated rather than angry, and he curled himself around me with his head on my shoulder and a hand on my stomach, where the baby lay nestled. It was impossibly tiny but it was a life and I was carrying it inside me. I covered his hand with mine.

“I'm scared, Rose,” he said eventually.

“So am I.”

“I'm scared of what I will become when you and the baby are gone,” he said. His bluntness cut into me, but at the same time I was grateful for his honesty.

“What if it's a Time Baby? A Time Tot? You won't be alone any more,” I pointed out. I didn't want to discuss what was going to happen once the end of my forever had come. I knew it was terrible for him, and it filled me with great sadness to know that one day he'd be the one to be left behind. Again. It was part of his life, and both he and I knew that he'd been lonely for far too long. He needed this. He needed me to make him better, and that's what I did. And I loved him. He made me better too – he just didn't want to admit to it. And now there was a baby.

“Are you sure you're pregnant? Have you taken a test?”

I nodded, dropping a kiss onto his hairline. His hair smelled of shampoo and gel and sunlight. “We can buy another one, and you can see for yourself,” I said softly, playing with his hair. “Can't you taste it on me? The change in hormones?”

He nodded, curling and uncurling his fingers beneath mine in an almost-but-not-quite tickle. He propped himself up on his elbow, pulled away the collar of my shirt and leaned down to lick the side of my neck, from the shoulder to just below my ear. I shivered with pleasure. “Pregnant.”

I purred. “I like this kind of test.”

He grinned briefly, but sobered quickly and lay down again.

“I've been a father before,” he mumbled in a choked voice.

“I'm sure you were a great dad,” I said, and I meant it.

He laughed softly. “I was a granddad. But I'm not sure I was always great.”

“What do you think... I mean about him being Gallifreyan?”

“It's too early to say,” he said after a moment's hesitation. I frowned. He was keeping something from me. “It must have happened after you'd caught that Fargullian cold. Wreaks havoc with the hormones, and I guess it upset yours enough to cancel out the pill.”

“Yeah,” I said. The cold had not been pleasant at all. It was worse than a usual cold combined with migraine. It only lasted two days, but that had been enough for me to want to die every single minute of them.

“Are you ready to have a child?” he asked.

“I...” It was hard to voice my thoughts appropriately. “I love him already,” I said, settling for the cliché. “The idea that a tiny human – or Gallifreyan – is growing inside me, that we made that new life, it's... it's overwhelming.”

“Brilliant, really, if you think about it,” the Doctor added. “Look at us Gallifreyans... we aren't born, we're loomed, and then we're finished and ding goes the timer and there we are. It's cold and... soulless. Efficient, but... cold.” His gaze darkened a little. “It might not be easy.”

“I'm having an alien baby,” I said. I had, of course, thought about that, had realised that it might be different and more difficult than having a human baby. But it was our baby, and we'd been through worse. “With my alien husband.”

His smile didn't reach his eyes. “Yes.”

“Are you mad at me, Doctor?” I asked.

He took a little too long to answer me, so when he finally did, it was hard to believe him. “No. No, I'm not mad at you, Rose. Just... worried.”

He wasn't just worried. He was scared, and there was something else that I couldn't put my finger on yet. But it worried me, and I could feel my nose itch and a lump in my throat. I was already a bundle of hormones, and my husband, my beloved Time Lord, had withdrawn from me.

“Can we go to Lufana?” I asked.

-:-

Fenia's words were still ringing in my ears when I sat down at a secluded table in the small cloistered restaurant. I had needed time to adjust to the idea of becoming a mother, and the Doctor needed time to adjust to the idea of becoming a father. So, once again, it was all about giving him time. Which is not an easy thing to do.

Four days had passed since the day on the beach, four days in which the Doctor clearly needed time to think and so I left him alone. I knew he’d come to me when he was ready. I had spent my time exploring the city a little and had found a lovely spa that was something of a cross between what I had seen on TV, the Roman baths we had once visited, and the oriental hammam bath I had read about and dreamed of so often. The people there had pampered me, maybe a little more than the other women there because of my creamy colouring. It was wonderful because I had missed being girly and treating myself. I felt as if my body were glowing, and my skin had never been so soft. I would have liked to show the Doctor and I wanted to make love to him, but he was being distant and scared and generally a lot like he'd been when I'd first met him.

His invitation to dinner, then, had come as a surprise. My heart was still hammering in my chest with nervousness. I was glad he'd only asked me out after my return from the spa. The questions running through my head would have kept me from relaxing. They had been there anyway, but at least they weren't so new and unusual that I couldn't shut them out for a little while.

“You look lovely,” he said, taking the seat across from me.

I smiled, my nervousness making it hard to swallow. Dear me, he was my husband – this was not our first date, however much it might feel like one.

We ordered and as we ate we talked about the changes in Lufana since we'd been here last. “It's a bit like homecoming,” the Doctor said softly. “We made a home here when we... when I thought we'd lost the TARDIS. I was happy here, eventually. You made me happy.”

I smiled, and my nervousness from earlier returned. What was he trying to tell me?

“I often thought, back then, that if we were to have a family I’d want to live here with them. It's a lovely, peaceful place,” he continued. He reached across the table for my hand. I gave his fingers an encouraging squeeze. I didn't know what else to do. “I'm scared, Rose. But I know we'll make it. If... if you still want to... that is?”

I laughed. “I never, not for a second, did not want him.”

He smiled in return. “I'm sorry. We'll make this right. Settle down here when it's time.”

I stood and moved around the table to him so I could kiss him. “I thought you were going to leave me.” There, I'd said it. The thoughts of the darkest place I had been to in the past couple of days.

He stared at me in shock. “Leave you?”

I shrugged. “I was being silly.”

“Leave the woman I love, the woman who's going to have my baby?”

“I'll be a bit silly; quite a bit.”

“Nah, you, Rose Tyler, are having a baby, not a lobotomy.”

Laughing, I pulled him to his feet. We paid and went back to Sho, where we had parked the TARDIS. It was a balmy night in early spring, and life was moving outside into the streets again. We passed quite a few cafés and street artistes who performed for passers-by like us. A few people recognised us and waved at us or said hello.

When we were close to Sho, there was a group of musicians who were performing one of the songs to which we had danced to at kivuala. Powerful memories resurfaced, and the Doctor's fingers clasped my hand a bit more tightly. He must have had the same idea.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry I put you through this,” he said, tugging at my hand to pull me into his arms. He held me very close, and I could feel the beginnings of his arousal press into my stomach. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yes,” I said, stretching to plant a kiss on his lips. We lingered a little, and I cupped his cheek to reassure him. “Dance with me?”

“What, here?”

I nodded, starting to move gently to the music. The rhythm was not erotic per se, but the memories we associated with it were very much so. To my surprise the Doctor started to move with me, and soon enough he held me as he turned and dipped and whirled me around. Passers-by stopped and started to clap and someone did a wolf-whistle. But I only noticed that when the song came to an end and the Doctor held me close so I could regain my senses and equilibrium. The dance was something in between fast and slow, and it was breathtaking and wonderful. At one point I'd thrown my head back, fixed my eyes on a particularly bright star and twirled. This was what life with the Doctor was like. A mad dance amongst the stars.

-:-

“We should get back to Sho,” he said, panting a little despite his respiratory bypass. I loved it when he allowed himself to get a bit light-headed. He was still half hard against me, and as he bent down for another kiss, it could have fast become too deep for a street festival.

“Yes, let's,” I breathed against his lips.

We had parked the TARDIS in the park next to Sho, in the shade of the big trees that stood dark and silent in the still night. The door squeaked softly open as the Doctor unlocked it, and he handed me inside. Before he could trap me against one of the struts or even the console, I skipped past him and towards our bedroom.

Once inside, I pulled my dress up and over my head. It was one of the Ruulim dresses that did not require me wearing a bra, something for which I was very grateful since my breasts and nipples had started to feel a little tender.

“Stop.”

I turned around in surprise. “Let me do that,” the Doctor said. He took the dress from my hands and dropped it onto a chair. Then he licked the side of my neck. “I love the way you taste now,” he murmured. He ran his fingertips over my body as if to memorize my shape. His mouth followed his fingers, and when he brushed my nipples I jumped with delight. They had never been so sensitive. I moaned and held his head in place so he wouldn't stop.

Eventually, he freed himself to continue on his journey of discovery, and I let him touch and kiss me, closing my eyes and simply enjoying it. By the time he carried me to our bed, I had completely lost track of time. When I opened my eyes I saw he was taking off his clothes, his cock now hard and glistening.

“You're beautiful,” he said, as if he couldn't help himself.

“So're you.”

“Rose,” he sighed as he climbed into bed beside me. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“I know. You won't,” I said, kissing him deeply. He pulled my knickers down and off my legs as we kissed, and his fingers found me wet and waiting. He grinned.

“Please, Doctor.”

The feeling, when he sank into me, was unbearably exquisite. It was one of the few times that he wasn't wearing a condom or covered in the gel, and I would get more of this from now on. I moaned, arching into him to invite him in even deeper. I held him to me with my arms around his shoulders and back, kissing him. He was heavy, but his weight was reassuring, and I wanted to feel him for as long as I could before he started to move.

“Rovalionn ti, yamu'sati,” I whispered. “Make this slow. Please.”

“Semrath ngudia tu ki faro?”

“Ngudia sam,” I replied.

He drove us both to the edge of completion with slow, measured strokes, and some sneaky ones, and he made me cry out his name before he finally picked up the rhythm so he too could come undone. He came with a loud moan and my name on his lips. When he spilled himself into me I helped him prolong his pleasure by clenching around him, hard, and encouraging him with Gallifreyan endearments.

He collapsed on top of me, and I held him, caressing his damp skin and whispering to him. It took him longer than normal to calm, and when he eventually moved I could see that he was crying.

“Hey, fiteo tu sirati?”

“Ngudia sam,” he replied, smiling despite his tears. I reached up to brush them off his sweaty face. “I love you so much, iyo.”

It was ancient Gallifreyan. The full term translated as parent of my child – it could be used for both mother and father. Deeply moved but smiling, I rolled onto my side so I could kiss him. “Are you still scared, iyo?”

He grinned. “That, and very very grateful.”

“So am I,” I replied, snuggling into him. “We're having a baby.”

“A brilliant mistake.”

“Oi,” I sighed sleepily. “Remind me to slap you in the morning. I'm too tired right now.”

He chuckled and dropped a kiss onto my forehead. Then I fell asleep, and I had the most wonderful dream of flying kites in the grassy hills outside Lufana.


End file.
